Thursday, August 09, 2007

More musings about gender and desire

All this deconstructing of gender has got me thinking about how it ties in to patterns of attraction. Specifically, how it ties into my own patterns of attraction.

In my case what attracts me has actually been remarkably consistent through the years – I say remarkably because there have always been clear messages that the specific things that I’m attracted to in men are, well, a bit weird. Not so much culturally approved of.

There’s a definite sense of pressure in American (and British, though not quite so strongly) culture for women to be attracted to men who are rather…macho. It manifests in a number of different ways – sometimes it’s about fetishising power, sometimes it’s about muscles and/or the overall sense that men are “supposed” to be substantially larger than their female partners, sometimes it’s about money. On a physical level there are multiple male “types” that are held up as cultural ideals. And none of them appeal to me sexually at all.

Typical example – the jock thing. I don’t like jocks. I don’t find them sexy. I do find people who have a strong sense of physicality about them sexy, and I have a distinct preference for men who are physically fit (that whole endurance thing always helps, you know?) but the big bulging muscles? Blech. Not my thing. The behavior that often goes with them? Even less sexy.

I can look at those men and find them aesthetically pleasing; I can see why other people find them sexy. But for me…on a sexual level it just does not compute. No response. It’s not even revulsion, it’s just…nothing. A blank space where desire “should” be.

That can be a disconcerting feeling when you’re young, that sense that there’s a way your libido is “supposed” to work and it doesn’t work that way at all. It was for me. I’ve gone through various stages of trying to convince myself that I can be attracted to those men, and it’s never worked. My body just won’t cooperate.

I also never, ever understood the idea of being attracted to wealth, or power. For me attraction is almost entirely physical – if I think someone is sexy I really don’t give a crap what he does for a living or how much money he has. Those things are simply irrelevant as far as my libido is concerned. I’ve known lots of women to whom those things do matter, but for me…again, does not compute. I try to understand it and my mind blue-screens on me.

It makes me wonder, though…are other women actually attracted to those things? As in, the idea that person X is rich actually makes them horny? Or is it a practical thing? Are they choosing to put their financial wellbeing ahead of their actual desires? Or does attraction work differently for them than it does for me, on a less specifically physical level? Are they the weird ones, or am I? Because I just can’t wrap my head around this idea of being attracted to wealth or power at all, and I sure as hell have no desire to wrap my body around it.

A powerful personality, on the other hand…now there’s an interesting thing. See, I’m a dom. But the men I’m attracted to aren’t really all that sub-ish on the surface. If I meet someone and their body language is radiating submission right from the get-go I’m really not all that interested. I want a challenge. I want to MAKE them submit. In my ideal sexual scenario there’s always an element of power struggle. People who give in too easily bore me. Most of the men I fit well with aren’t really subs, not exclusively, they’re switches. There have been a couple of cases in which the first person they were ever submissive to was me. Not only don’t I want them to submit immediately the first time, I don’t want them to submit immediately ever. A fulltime D/s relationship wouldn’t work for me at all. I’d lose all interest in the other person on a sexual level. I’d feel like his Mommy.

I’m not quite sure what to call that. Is there even a word for it? I know that it’s not a unique thing, and I know that there are men out there who complement me perfectly, because I’ve met them. I also know that couples that work that way tend to confuse and vex a lot of BSDM folks, probably because they’re not quite sure how to classify them.

I’m not sure how that particular kink intersects with my sexual preferences in general, but I’ve always wondered if there’s some sort of connection. Which brings us to… The men I find sexy. I’m ignoring the girls for now because in all honesty I’m a lot more flexible there, and I don’t have quite such a clear “type”. With men though, I’m not very flexible at all, preference-wise.

So what do I like? I like skinny, but ideally with a little muscle definition, especially in the abs. I like pretty, REALLY pretty. Most of the men I find truly appealing were probably mistaken for girls quite a few times when they were younger. In fact, looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever been really attracted to a guy who hasn’t been addressed as “miss” at some point. I like dark hair and pale skin. I adore high cheekbones and full, pouty lips. Pretty hands do terrible things to me. I have an odd fetish for collarbones, and for shoulders that look bite-able. I also tend to prefer dark eyes, although blue or green eyes on a person with black hair can be stunning. Kind of sounds like the goth stereotype so far, huh? I’ve always wondered how much of my initial attraction to that particular subculture was all about the boys (and the girls – damn, did I love goth girls when I was a teenager). I also really, really like clothes. I’ve never dated a man who was indifferent to clothes, one of the ones who dress mostly just to avoid arrest. I like guys who I can play dress-up with.

A quick glance around my blog should give an idea of what I’m getting at. See, skinny pretty boys as far as the eye can see! I tend to plaster my site in VK boys, partly because that particular scene abounds in men who fit my type, and partly because those particular guys tend to be shameless camera whores, so it’s not too hard to find pretty pictures of them. OK, so in a couple of cases it’s because I also like their bands, but the guy I have up on the sidebar right now comes from a band that I’ve never much cared for, and as sexy as he is I still think he sings like he has peanuts up his nose. Sometimes it really is just about the ass.

Now here’s where the whole idea of gender comes in…how would YOU describe those guys? I kind of feel like part of what I’m responding to may be a very specific gender identity, or at least gender expression. Note the complete lack of interest in anyone conventionally macho. Note the preference for all things femmey. But, just to complicate matters…there’s a certain point at which men become too femmey for my tastes. I can think of dozens of VK guys who fit that description, who to me just look like, well, girls. There isn’t the particular blend of masculine and feminine that seems to be the sexual trigger for me. What do you call that? That weird mix of masculine and feminine characteristics? And why is it that in my case it’s so damn specific? The one way in which I used to conform to typical ideas about what women are “supposed” to want is height. I always had a preference for really tall men. Which is sort of funny, since I’m 5ft2 and even the teeniest men are usually taller than me. For a while in high school I refused to date anyone under 6ft tall. Then I moved to London and met this one guy who was maybe 5ft7? 5ft8? And just the sexiest damn thing I’d ever seen. At that point I started reevaluating the height requirement. It never really disappeared, though; I just sort of slotted him away in my mind as the exception to the rule. I still clung on to the idea that men are “supposed” to be tall.

In the last few years that’s started to change, and I’m not quite sure why. Maturity? Not caring so much about what other people think any more? In a weird way I think maybe my insistence on the men I dated being tall was a way to counterbalance the gender ambiguity of the men I preferred in other people’s minds. As in, OK, so my boyfriend’s girlier than I am, but hey, he’s a foot taller than me! That has to count for something, right? Please don’t beat both of us up, random sexist dude.

Lately I’m finding that I just don’t care about how tall men are any more. I still love the look of tall + skinny, but the idea of man who totally fits my type in every way but just happens to not be very tall doesn’t trigger the same instinctive “I can’t do that” reflex that it used to. In fact, of all the men I’ve encountered over the past year or so the one I reacted to most strongly in terms of sheer attraction was about 5ft7. And OK, so he’s GORGEOUS, but still, in the past the fact that in heels I’m looking him right in the eye would have bothered me, and now it doesn’t. What’s up with that?

And then there’s another thing, a thing that I think had a lot to do with that instinctive feeling that I shouldn’t be going for men who weren’t tall that I had for a long time. If you take a guy who fits my type and he’s, say, under 5ft8, what’s your initial impression of that guy going to be on a physical level? Petite. In some cases positively delicate. And that’s something that’s totally verboten in our culture, women being attracted to men not just in spite of the fact that they’re delicate and sort of vulnerable-looking, but because of it. Women aren’t supposed to feel protective about men. We aren’t allowed to have that feeling that a lot of men have about women who are fragile and delicate and beautiful, that weird combination of lust and protectiveness and sheer fascination. It’s OK for men to feel that way about women, but for a woman to feel that way about a man? Freaky. Not OK. Positively unnatural.

And yet in some cases I do feel that way, and I think I always have. Maybe it’s a dom thing, maybe not. Who can ever really untangle those things, the way kinks and aesthetic preferences intersect? The way your personality affects what you’re attracted to? The way how you like to fuck affects what you’re attracted to?

I also think that this is part of why I’ve always been so puzzled by the standard boilerplate feminist argument that men are big and scary and aggressive and dangerous and women are little and frail and delicate and vulnerable. Those men that I’m attracted to? Even the really tall ones are still pretty damn delicate, really. The dude currently decorating my sidebar? 6ft1, 127 pounds. Not exactly burly, probably not much use in a bar fight. The guy who I recently encountered who I had such a weird visceral reaction to? He weighs about 115 pounds, which is less than many women I know. I’m supposed to view this person as physically invulnerable in the sense that some radfems seem to think all men are? Once again…does not compute, at least not for me. And I’ve met lots of men like that over the years.

In an odd sort of way I feel protective about those kinds of guys. Actually, there are lots of men who I feel protective about. I have a concert buddy who I get incredibly protective about sometimes, and OK, he’s only 17, but he’s about 6 ft tall and he towers over me. And it’s not just the age that triggers that protective instinct, it’s the personality. There’s a particular dynamic that I always seem to have with gentle, soft-spoken, introverted guys, and a sense of protectiveness has always been a part of that. I see those men as vulnerable, in some ways far more vulnerable than myself, and in a certain way that’s part of the attraction.

I’m guessing that the standard explanation for all this would be that it’s a kink, a sex thing, and on some level I’m sure it is, but then again…why should we assume that men are invulnerable? And isn’t vulnerability part of what attracts most people to each other? Is it really so odd for that to be part of what attracts someone to a particular person, just because of gender?

I’m still trying to sort all this out in my head. I had a weird moment there, when I met that man, the one who I was really drawn to, and I realized that that sense I have of him as soft and delicate and oddly vulnerable is part of what I find so attractive. And then I realized that on some level I’ve always been that way, I’ve just written it off in a lot of cases as something else, as sisterly feelings or kink or some other thing, when in fact I think it’s something that’s far more basic than that. It’s part of my nature to be drawn to and want to protect vulnerable things. It’s also part of my nature to be fascinated by beauty. Combine the two and of course I’m going to find that person nearly irresistible. Why the hell did I ever try to convince myself otherwise?

In this case I blame both the patriarchy and the feminist theory. How often do you get to say that?

Opening the floor to comments now. Does anyone else have any idea what I’m talking about here? Am I really the only woman in the world who feels this way? Do other women have that same protective feeling towards the men in their lives, just not necessarily so much based on appearance? Do any of us really buy the theory that men are invulnerable? And if most of us don’t, how the hell did that idea ever become such an entrenched part of feminist theory? And finally…how does this all tie in to the way we conceptualize gender, and what it means to be “masculine” or “feminine”?

39 comments:

Cassandra, this is fascinating -- such a specific set of attraction patterns, and I have to admit, I give you major points for being beyond some of the standard patriarchal dynamics.

I have to admit, pretty much every guy I've ever been with has outweighed me by 50lbs or more and been at least 5" taller (I'm 5'5"). (One exception -- was set up with Doug Boxer, son of Barbara -- so if you've seen his mom, you can guess, he was about 5'4". He leaned upwards to kiss me! Plus he said "air force one" every other word. Never again). Even at my biggest weight when pregnant, my husband had me by 30, and I have to admit I'd have been uncomfortable otherwise.

Also, on size, I'm like you about the fitness, but I don't mind the bulging muscles one bit. Bring it on! Love handles, I must admit, would be a deal-killer.

About the attraction to wealth/power -- I am on a similar page but not identical. I have no attraction to inherited wealth or power. I do find someone who has taken initiative, whether or not this has resulted in wealth, impressive. Someone who was languishing or goofing off in some way... no matter how studly, I just don't think I could go there physically.

You say: "Are they choosing to put their financial wellbeing ahead of their actual desires? Or does attraction work differently for them than it does for me, on a less specifically physical level? Are they the weird ones, or am I? Because I just can’t wrap my head around this idea of being attracted to wealth or power at all, and I sure as hell have no desire to wrap my body around it."

For me, yes, there's a physical response to non-physical things -- the determination, self-esteem and smarts, but also the result itself, which is more superficial.

I think the reason is this. I just have not had any success with relationships where I am by far the more together. I've had early experiences my early/mid 20s with gorgeous disaffected rebels, and they never worked. They always wound up resenting me and I always wound up frustrated with them, which translated into their getting aggressive and/or my seeing them as impotent, which sometimes was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I wonder how much is our innate attraction and how much is a growing sense of the patriarchal realities. On height and bulk, for instance. With probably 99% of guys, I am going to be able to solve the Times Crossword quicker, out-earn him, finish his sentences quicker than he can, and figure out how to be first in line for more things. This sounds awful and I think probably even more so being female, we're not supposed to be aware of these things, and if we are we shouldn't admit them. But being aware of these things, realistically guys are going to feel more comfortable if they are physically much bigger/stronger. So they will seem more confident and therefore I will be more attracted.

That's why it's so impressive to me that you are able to accept a certain amount of vulnerability in a man. You're very formidable, and being able to achieve a comfort level with the very real possibility that you could overpower/dominate someone who culturally gains power from relative size and dominance, while still making this work -- that's pretty awesome.

"Do other women have that same protective feeling towards the men in their lives, just not necessarily so much based on appearance?

Yes, this rings a bell. While my husband is 6'1", 175lb, and very hairy -- so not what one would think about re smooth/delicate -- there are parts of him that are vulnerable and that I love for this reason. Also, there are various family-related circumstances that provoke considerable anxiety in him -- that too makes me feel protective.

But I do feel that I could not have a feeling of attraction coexisting with a feelign of protectiveness if he were not bigger/stronger/hairier. How much of that is a knowledge that it could not work societally and how much is my own stubborn ingrained stereotypes? Not sure.

I wrote recently, in a post riffing off P. Burke's Men Are Pretty, about my own attraction patterns and my reactions to the whole notion of the men that I'm 'supposed' to find attractive.

In there, among other things, I noted that a while back (probably a year or two by now, I have no time sense) I did one of those internet personality quiz things that was "What men do you find attractive?", which was all "Which photograph do you like the hair on better?" and stuff like that. And in the hundred or so photos that was on that thing, there was maybe one or two guys I thought was attractive.

This tiny, tiny fraction of the male population was put forward as 'these are the guys you're supposed to want to pick from', and they can't even manage to hit 'as attractive as a typical one of the guys who show at the Thursday game-playing get-together'.

We have a limited overlap on the fellows we fancy, I think, but share the experience of having the men who are pushed at us as The Attractive Ones being just ... null in the hormone-carbonation department. Occasionally the mass media throws something at me that I feel, "Well, he'd make a pretty decoration" about, but that's not the same as actually being attractive.

The physical type I fancy tends to either 'athletic' or 'stocky' build, longish hair, good shoulders, that fascinating pattern of contours in and around the throat and collarbones that's so interesting and hard to articulate clearly, good hands, interesting nose, moves well. Height can turn my head, though not as much as when I was younger (I'm not sure why that is, though I've got some whimsical and largely off-colour pseudo-explanations). (And my ex was kind of startled when he met my dom, as he expected that he'd be taller than I am -- whereas I'm taller than he is by a smidge and have better posture.) Personality type that hooks me is geeky (and the poor geeky fellows are so often convinced that they're hopelessly unattractive).

I tend towards a protector/nurturer response to my partners and close friends. Frequently in a behind-the-scenes sort of way, the quiet support that keeps someone who presents a strong face to the world going, stable, healthy, happy. (And I wouldn't be surprised if that's something I select for at some level -- that sense of being a part of the secret of someone's strength.)

On how this notion of male invulnerability managed to get ingrained in various stuff -- I think there's a huge Othering thing in general culture, at least in the United States (I can't speak to other cultures), regarding sex. The whole Men-Mars Women-Venus crap -- the notion that there is this gulf of comprehension and nature that needs to be navigated. Which means that if women are vulnerable, men have to be invulnerable, and so on, in order to preserve the difference. If men and women are both human, and thus have huge pools of common experience with both strength and vulnerability, then the whole house of cards collapses. (And I've seen people who buy into that stuff fight hard against the notion that they have something in common with someone on the other side of the sex differentiation divide. It boggles my tiny little mind.)

"have of him as soft and delicate and oddly vulnerable is part of what I find so attractive. And then I realized that on some level I’ve always been that way, I’ve just written it off in a lot of cases as something else, as sisterly feelings or kink or some other thing, when in fact I think it’s something that’s far more basic than that. It’s part of my nature to be drawn to and want to protect vulnerable things."

I think I'm very similar to you. I think it's part of being a genderfucked top, for me -- I'm attracted to my polar oppositely genderfucked bottom.

Octo - Barbara Boxer's kid? Does he look like her? And WHY was he so intent on talking about AF1? Did it have anything to do with the actual conversation you were having?

I actually used to worry about relative weight a lot more than I do now. That may be part of my worrying less about height than I used to, actually - a guy who's over 6 ft tall is generally going to weigh more than me no matter how skinny he is. I think in a way I was using the height difference as a buffer so that I could feel all little and cute. Maybe at a certain point I realised that my sense of myself didn't need to be so dependent on who I'm dating - I mean, I'm the same person regardless of how big or small he is, right?

Love handles are a deal breaker for me, too, so we definately have something in common there. And I wonder about that...as in, how much of what we're attracted t is spillover from how we feel about our own bodies? If I was less size-conscious and OK with being heavier than maybe I'd care less about the men I date being thin?

On the wealth/power thing...I'm definately drawn to people who seem like they have their shit together. Dissafected drifter isn't my type at all...I just don't care about the money part, it's more about, is this person happy with himeself? Comfortable in his own skin? Because if he isn't then that's going to effect me in negative ways, therefore it's not a desireable characteristic in a partner.

Also, can I just say that I find it hilarious that you say I'm formidable? And you're far from the first person to say it, yet it still amuses me every time.

That's part of why I'm OK with the guys being skinny, I think...my own perception of myself on a physical level is so colored by the fact that I'm really short. When I was a little heavier for a while I felt less comfortable with it in the sense that I was worried that I looked odd with guys who were small or skinny, though my actual desires never changed. When I'm at a healthy weight I don't worry about that.

Also, about confidence, I'm not sure I understand you there. Do you feel like a man who doesn't feel like he's got an edge over you in some way won't feel confident around you?

I think this is probably the one are where I really am a hard-ass when it comes to men. If I feel like they're intimidated by me then they automatically register as "wimp" regardless of size, social position etc. I don't want them to feel or act like they're my superior, either, but I tend to think that if someone's intimidated by my brains or looks or whatever and needs to feel superior to be confident around me then, well, clearly he's not all that confident on a deeper level.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense here. I suppose the question is - where does confidence come from? Does it always have to be based on how people "rank" in relation to their partner, or to other people in general? Or does it come from how a person stacks up against their INTERNAL idea of how they should be? I'm definately in the latter group, which may well be why I'm not that concerned with the whole "what will society/the neighbors think?" issue.

BTW, I think I respond to things like drive, determination, etc in pretty much the same way you do, it's just that I care less about the end result. Because I know the kind of guys you talk about having dated in your early twenties, and I had a few of those, too. And I HATED them and felt like giving them a good kick in the ass most of the time. I don't react well to whiny people.

Also, here's a thought which may explain the difference RE patriarchal programming...that thing you said about feeling guilty or wierd about acknowledging that you're smarter than men and possibly better equipped to deal with practical things in general? I don't feel like that, certainly not in a gender-specific sense. I LIKE being the smartest person in the roomm,and I like it even more when the people I'm smarter than are men who're a bit full of themselves. In fact, my best relationships always seem to have been with people who are every bit as intellectually arrogant as I am and we end up sort of sneering at the dumb people together. Now there's a confession!

But the "better not let the boys realise how smart you are" thing? I never got that. Don't know if that's the result of something my parents did or going to an all-girls school but there it is. When I encounter men who seem to want me to play dumb so as not to make them feel bad I tend to look at them as if they were some sort of strange and pitiable alien lifeform, as in "ew, look what the cat dragged into the kitchen, it's making a mess all over my floor".

How embarrassing. In reading over my comment, could I have said "I have to admit" more often? Clearly, I must be defensive for some reason about all this...

Anyway...

"Octo - Barbara Boxer's kid? Does he look like her? And WHY was he so intent on talking about AF1? Did it have anything to do with the actual conversation you were having?"

Yes, he looks JUST like her. You know the Boxer "box" that they use for her to stand on so she can be higher than the podium? He'd need one too.

Funny story, I first met him at a friend's pool party. I had gotten into the jacuzzi and then realized I had not shaved my pubic hair and it was hanging out the sides of my bikini bottom. There was no towel near me when I had to get out. I was the last one out and I think Doug figured out what was going on as he very nicely came over with a towel. So that made me think I should really get over my phobia about guys shorter than I am.

The AF1 thing was basically that Clinton had asked him and his mom to ride in AF1, which might have been OK as an aside, but it kept getting dragged in to everything out of nowhere. Overcompensate much?

Another weird thing, John Cusack and a babular girlfriend showed up during our dinner. Doug was all over them without introducing me. Which sucked because John was looking really fine, and I would have been happy for Doug to hang with babe girlfriend while I spent some quality time with John. Didn't happen though.

"I think in a way I was using the height difference as a buffer so that I could feel all little and cute."

I hear you on that. I am relatively small but my personality is not "cute" so I always feel the need to create some kind of dynamic where I can be that way, if only because of relative size.

"Love handles are a deal breaker for me, too, so we definately have something in common there."

I'm trying to convince myself that my superficiality in this regard is really just "an attraction to health" -- does that work for you?

"And I wonder about that...as in, how much of what we're attracted to is spillover from how we feel about our own bodies? If I was less size-conscious and OK with being heavier than maybe I'd care less about the men I date being thin?"

That could be. I do think that where there are medical reasons why someone could not lose the handles, I could accept that. OK, full disclosure -- I would probably suggest he get lipo. But I do think, barring metabolic/medical issues, it's fair to expect the same fitness commitment from our mates that we are willing to expend.

"Also, about confidence, I'm not sure I understand you there. Do you feel like a man who doesn't feel like he's got an edge over you in some way won't feel confident around you?"

Yup. I don't think he should need to feel superior, but yeah, I think he will feel less emasculated if he has one area where he is "larger." I don't think this is the way it SHOULD be. But I think conditioning is a hard thing to completely discard. I've known supremely confident, centered guys who felt more comfortable if there was an area they could feel more competent in. It's not that I would EVER hide the areas I was more competent in.

"I tend to think that if someone's intimidated by my brains or looks or whatever and needs to feel superior to be confident around me then, well, clearly he's not all that confident on a deeper level."

I agree. I'd never want to be with anyone who needed that.

On the results of drive -- I agree, that's not as important as the process and attitude. I do have a prejudice as to whether someone is employed, however.

I get the "he'd look nice next to the armoire" feeling from Men Who Are Officially Considered To Be Hot sometimes, too, but it's really not a sexual thing at all. It's just like, hey, that sure is a nice car. I don't want to drive the car, but sure, it's pretty enough, I suppose. (shrugs)

Then there are the times (hello, Justin Timberlake!) where I'm just completely baffled and left wondering if everyone else needs new glasses.

The whole Mars/Venus/men and women are different species thing has always baffled me, too. It seems so obvious that the shared experiences account for a greater portion of our psyches than the differences do, and then you add in things like affinity groups, subcultures etc and I'm left wondering what this whole gulf between the sexes crap is that everyone else seems to believe in. I just don't get it. Never have. I think you're right that that idea is what's behind a lot of things, though, the idea that everything's binary and if men are A then women must be B, and men cannot be B and women certainly cannot ever be A. It's just...where does this stuff come from, and why can't people see through it?

Octo - Well, if you were Boxer's kid you might feel a little bit of a need to overcomensate...plus, our culture is unkind to men who are 5ft4. Not that I wouldn't have been annoyed with him too, especially for not introducing me to Cusack. It was nice of him to hand you the towel, though.

For some inexplicable reason I get called cute even when I'm being loud and obnoxious. I thought that it would stop happening when I hit my thirties, but so far no sign of that. Maybe it's because I'm very huggy/kissy with people I like? It's wierd...I can be spouting feminist theory or Marxism and people still call me cute. I think that allows me to get away with a lot, actually, especially since I know how to amp up the cute when it suits my purposes.(Damn, it's like Bad Feminist Central in here tonight)

On the love handles issue...I'm willing to just admit that I'm superficial in that regard - you like what you like, you know?. I'm actually waging a campaign of "hit the track, buddy" right now with Mr Cassandra, since he got chubbier at the same time I did, and I've lost most of it, but he has yet to do so. So I will cut guys SOME slack (I'm not dumping him just because it's taking a while), but it's always made clear that if I have to make the effort to stay in shape, so do they.

And I'm not sure I see why that's so bad, actually. It's different if you're asking something you're not prepared to deliver yourself, but if it's a mutual thing, what's the problem?

"especially since I know how to amp up the cute when it suits my purposes.(Damn, it's like Bad Feminist Central in here tonight)"

I love it!

"And I'm not sure I see why that's so bad, actually. It's different if you're asking something you're not prepared to deliver yourself, but if it's a mutual thing, what's the problem?"

Yup. That makes sense. I've got a trainer and meal plan specifically targeted to get my stomach flat, with maybe a hint of a six pack, in 3-4 months. If MrO thinks he can continue in his complacent 2 half-hour sessions on the elliptical mode after that, he's very mistaken.

Of course, my trainer is this unbelievably hot, black guy (I like dark complexions of any kinds best) with unbelievable glutes, so it's not really THAT much of a sacrifice, but I've conveniently left that part out...

"Yup. I don't think he should need to feel superior, but yeah, I think he will feel less emasculated if he has one area where he is "larger." I don't think this is the way it SHOULD be. But I think conditioning is a hard thing to completely discard. I've known supremely confident, centered guys who felt more comfortable if there was an area they could feel more competent in. It's not that I would EVER hide the areas I was more competent in. "

See, this is where the difference is. If a guy is worrying about being emasculated then he's pretty much by definition not someone I'd be comfortable dating. That's partly a feminist thing and partly a dom thing.

Which isn't a criticism of the fact that you feel differently than I do, BTW. I'm just saying that for me a man's having the sort of consciousnesss where emasculation would ever be something he would be concerned with would be a deal-breaker.

Also, I realised that the last comment made me sound like a complete body Naxi...I'm not. I'm not at all judgemental about people's bodies in general, it's just that my type really is very specific, and I'm not going to be attracted to a guy who doesn't fit it.

*goes and image-googles Timberlake* Wow, what an ... ordinary-looking ... unremarkable ... person. This is what gets filed as a sex object by the kids these days?

*shakes head*

As far as I can tell from occasionally engaging with people who are religious believers in the cult of the MarsVenus, it's like any other really cherished mythology. If it gets taken away, they just don't know how to navigate the world. It doesn't matter if the myth is broken (or at least being interpreted in broken ways), it's the Truth.

And the fact that women don't respond consistently to certain stuff isn't read as 'different people like different stuff', it's 'those women are so incomprehensible and irrational, I don't know how to communicate with them.' And the belief in the inability to communicate creates the barrier, which then gets elaborated with more goddamn mythology about why communication is so hard.

And it's something that clearly gets its hooks into people very young, which is probably why I have such a hard time understanding it -- I missed the window to imprint with it, which means I don't understand how anyone would ....

I'm not even asking for/expecting six pack abs - not that I'd object, but that's not the expectation. I'm just expecting that the SO remain basically the same shape he was when we hooked up, and thus still within the boundaries of my type.

Although, care to share the meal plan? I've got a great ab workout but I'm still poochier in the stomach than I'd like. The upper arms could use some help, too.

Also, before everyone thinks I'm being totally unfair...I assume that Mr Cassandra has similar expectations of me. I wouldn't expect him to be OK with me suddenly being a completely different shape, either.

The Mars/Venus people...the scary thing is that I suspect they may be in the majority. And as you said, it's a self-reinforcing thing - every time their wierd mythology inhibits their ability to communicate they just assume that it's proof that the mythology is correct. The whole thing's completely batshit.

Remember "The Rules"? That was the same thing. I can remember working with women who complained about how the techniques just weren't working, but it never occured to them to wonder if the whole system was dumb and illogical. They just assumed that they must not be doing it right.

Trin - The wierd thing is that I don't think I am genderfucked, at least not in the way I understand the term. I look pretty girly, you know? And I feel comforable in a female body and all that stuff. And some parts of my personality are classically "feminine" - nurturing, physically demonstrative, blah blah. But then there's the toppiness and the feminism and the general bolshiness.I'm not sure how to describe my own space on the gender/sexuality continuum at all.

Also, I think you and I may mean the same thing when we say "confidence", and I think it may be a different meaning to the one most other people use, at least when it applies to men.

Well, having never felt 'little and cute' in my life (it's kinda hard when you're 5'10 and 200 lbs by the time you're 12, ya know?), I gave up worrying about a man's height a long time ago. Ditto with weight. The fact of the matter is, most men are going to be shorter and lighter than me. Especially now that all the damned steroids have packed on the pounds. But ya know, it doesn't matter so much to me. I need a man/woman who is confident with his/herself. Granted, I tend to prefer my men skinny and tall, but ya know, if he's chubby and short and he's happy with himself? That's cool too. I need someone who feels the need to make excuses for his body. I don't want to hear how you're really trying hard to lose those ten pounds or how you've been dieting for X months/years/whatever. If you are in fact doing those things, fine. But don't make that the center of your life. (And yeah, women do this too. It annoys the hell out of me.) Granted, I won't be attracted to someone so large they can't function. I wouldn't expect anyone to be attracted to me either, if I couldn't function. But I'm not so much stuck on body shapes as I am that inherent sense of....certainity about themselves, ya know?

This has been a development of the last few years. When I was younger (and healthier) I was very conscious of what the person I was with looked like, almost like it was some validation of my worth as a person -- look! Someone pretty likes me! Of course, that came out of a lot of programming that I was the chubby, smart one, not the pretty datable one. Which is not to say I wasn't genuinely attracted to the people I was with, just there was another motive as well.

And I like feminine men. I do. But that has more to do with their attitude than appearance. Or maybe it has as much to do with their attitude as appearance. By nature, I'm very protective of those that I love and tend to be a bit...oh, dominant? So I need someone who is comfortable enough with himself, with his 'feminine' traits to be able to deal with that. I'm not sure if this is coming out right. Hrm. I need someone whose masculinity is not threatened by my desire to protect them. There. That's better. I need someone who isn't freaked out by the fact that I may just want to put him in makeup, who isn't going to be insulted or think I'm some sort of freak. I need someone who's cool with the fact that I am a domme at time and dammit, he will so let me tie him up naked and do what I want or else. I need someone turned on by that, who can appreciate my complexity. So, if he/she can do that? The package he/she comes in isn't all that important to me, in the long run.

I've also been accused, on numerous occassions, of having a scary, overwhelming personality. It always baffles me, because I know that I would never actually hurt someone (who didn't want me to), but apparently I can put the fear of me into people. Which pleases me greatly.

It's funny- my actual sister loves power and money. But she’s big into image, pleasing other people, playing the game ect.. Love her, but it’s true. I guess I've always been more interested in acquiring my own power & money- if the person who I'm with has power & money, good for them, but it's not a requirement. What matters to me is that they are willing to surrender and crawl out of their shell... sexually, that is.

Gender Outlaws please me immensely. Boys who look like girls and girls who look like boys. Radical people who give society the finger...yeah.Sexy.

I've never understood the whole "women are vulnerable delicate flowers and must be protected from the menz" rad fem stance either. I'm not scared, and it doesn't sound like anyone responding to this thread is.

Trin - I don't think I'm imposing either unless I want to be - I'm a little too friendly, you know? - but it tickles the hell out of me that people so often think so.

And this..."General confidence, sure. But that? No. It's like "Who made you my top without my consent?" "

Yep. To me most het dating looks like a really mild and poorly executed form of BSDM, except nobody has safe words and you don't get any choice about which role you play. I never did get why that would be fun.

Which is yet ANOTHER reason that the relative lack of friendliness to the femmey and/or sub boys rankles so much, since along with the toppish and not-so-femmey girls those are usually the first people to question why the whole system is set up the way it is. Those men are our natural allies. I'm not sure why this fact is so hard for some people to grasp.

"If a guy is worrying about being emasculated then he's pretty much by definition not someone I'd be comfortable dating."

This would strike me as ruling out more guys than the sixpack rule would. I don’t seek out, or find attractive, guys who are actively worrying about emasculation, either. To me it seems like even extremely secure men aren’t completely impervious to gender insecurity, though.

“Although, care to share the meal plan? I've got a great ab workout but I'm still poochier in the stomach than I'd like. The upper arms could use some help, too.”

I've learned from my trainer that diet is a big factor in pooch removal. Which is not good news for me, because I love my cheesy Caesar salads and creamy frappucinos.

Basically, he suggested 4-5 meals a day with a combination of whole grains, protein, “good” fats (with Omega 3s) and lots of fruit/veg. Here is what he suggested (not saying I can stick with this):

Trin – I think the word I used was “formidable,” not “imposing.” Defined as “arousing feelings of awe or admiration.” Cassandra is articulate, confident, worldly, in shape, very bright, clued in to her sexuality and comfortable with a sexuality that isn’t mainstream. That all adds up, to me, to “formidable.” In a way, the ability to turn it on and off makes it even more so. Do you disagree?

About the emasculation thing...I guess I've just always had the sense that most men aren't going to be a good fit for me and I'm OK with that, so I don't really care if they essentially elimate themselves from consideration. I mean, if they're not exactly what I'm looking for then why bother, really, since I'm just going to end up dumping them eventually anyway.

RE The meal plan - so he's suggesting that you drastically limit (but not elimate, because then you won't have enough energy to work out)carbs, while amping up the protein and produce and elminating most of the less-beneficial fats?

My great dietary weakness is chocolate, which I'm sure is part of why the pooch refuses to budge.

Also, did he suggest any alternatives to the wheat crackers? I hate crackers, not much interested in salty snacks in general unless they come with really good salsa.

That's pretty much it. For carbs, he said oatmeal without a lot of sugar (like the GoLean kind), brown rice, seven-grain bread and the occasional healthy-type bran muffin are good.

The wheatena is really heavy in grains so a good dose of that goes pretty far to covering the daily requt, apparently.

Full disclosure, I haven't had a day yet (started 2 weeks ago) where I've stuck to this. I'm not into the many meals thing, I get stressed at work and need to be able to look forward to big meals. And typically, unlike the ideal plan where breakfast is the biggest, I eat most for dinner, and typically will have a late-night snack.

I'm planning to try to find some kind of happy medium by cutting out bad fats, keeping the late-night snack fruit-oriented, maybe subbing soy or skim milk for my lattees, and trying to eat more veggies and less carbs. Other than that, I'll have to phase it in -- life's too short.

I have limited discipline for food modification but a lot of it re working out cardio and abs, so I'm hoping the latter can get me to the flat tum, if not the sixpack. I read that women can't get a sixpack until you hit lower than 12% bodyfat, and I'm pretty far away from that and not likely to get there pretty much ever.

Oatmeal I can do. I actually prefer the slow-cooking kind so it's easy to control how much sugar I use. Did he say anything about raisins?

I'd have a hard time with the 5 or 6 meals thing, just because it's so inconvenient, BUT since I like fruit it would be easy to include that if it "counts", which it may not as fruit lacks protein.

The hardest thing for me is breakfast, actually. I dislike most Western breakfast foods, and I don't like milk at all, but I know breakfast is the most important meal and yadda yadda. I've been seriously contemplating doing what I did as a kid in the Middle East and just treating breakfast like any other meal, ie eating a small portion of rice + meat + veggies.

Speaking of...did he say anything specific about dairy? I only ask because I noticed you mentioned substituting soy milk.

(I'm kind of iffy about soy milk because they still don't seem to be quite sure how the soy/breast cancer interaction works. Some people say it's preventative, but then again it's a plant estrogen so...)

Check out the Okinawa Program. It's a study done to look at the high number of >100 year old people in Okinawa and looking at diet and nutrition to figure out why. What they say about soy is that Okinawan women who have large quantities of soy get natural estrogens from this. Soy has flavinoids which are selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) which block estrogen from certain areas like the endometrium and breasts but allow it to promote bone growth. The had the stat that an Okinawan woman’s odds of not getting breast cancer are better by more than 80 percent than those of a North American woman.

I actually like the taste of it, though. I think you could probably sub skim milk or 1% if you don't.

I can look at those men and find them aesthetically pleasing; I can see why other people find them sexy. But for me…on a sexual level it just does not compute. No response. It’s not even revulsion, it’s just…nothing. A blank space where desire “should” be.

That can be a disconcerting feeling when you’re young, that sense that there’s a way your libido is “supposed” to work and it doesn’t work that way at all. It was for me. I’ve gone through various stages of trying to convince myself that I can be attracted to those men, and it’s never worked. My body just won’t cooperate.

oh well does THAT ever resonate. course, with me it was a bit more clearly delineated...

Personally, if I absolutely had to define you, I'd say "into power-play with fey/androgynous men".

But I think "fey" might have slightly different connotations for me than most people? (I've seen it used as a "delicate" synonym for gay, and I don't mean exactly elfin either... But I do know the kind of guy you're talking about.)

That's a quick bead on it, though.

As for the money = sexy thing... I could maybe understand "money = get to do cool things with this person that maybe I couldn't without the $$ = sexier", but wealth being the entire attraction? Nah. My attraction is almost entirely physical and mental.

"Trin – I think the word I used was “formidable,” not “imposing.” Defined as “arousing feelings of awe or admiration.” Cassandra is articulate, confident, worldly, in shape, very bright, clued in to her sexuality and comfortable with a sexuality that isn’t mainstream. That all adds up, to me, to “formidable.” In a way, the ability to turn it on and off makes it even more so. Do you disagree?"

Hm. Not really, but I don't in any way feel threatened by her. The way you used the word, it sounded like you were saying she had a certain sort of imposing aura, and I don't get that vibe at all.

"Hm. Not really, but I don't in any way feel threatened by her. The way you used the word, it sounded like you were saying she had a certain sort of imposing aura, and I don't get that vibe at all."

I hear you. I meant from the standpoint of a prospective male partner. The exact context was the following:

"That's why it's so impressive to me that you are able to accept a certain amount of vulnerability in a man. You're very formidable, and being able to achieve a comfort level with the very real possibility that you could overpower/dominate someone who culturally gains power from relative size and dominance, while still making this work -- that's pretty awesome."

Cassandra, and possibly you as well, has been fortunate to encounter the rare breed of male who has no concerns about feeling emasculated by intelligence, wit, social and sexual confidence, worldliness, in the same package. Maybe because I have historically been attracted to a macho, man's man type of exterior, I have found it hard to find this kind of acceptance. Most of my relationships before MrO have involved some form of mostly unconscious catering to egos, to preserve equanimity in this regard. During the stripping era, of course, things became easier because of the rescue fantasy that evoked, but since I had an independent exit plan, this wasn't really a solution.

"And the fact that women don't respond consistently to certain stuff isn't read as 'different people like different stuff', it's 'those women are so incomprehensible and irrational, I don't know how to communicate with them.' And the belief in the inability to communicate creates the barrier, which then gets elaborated with more goddamn mythology about why communication is so hard."

Oh my God, I HATE that sort of crap. All of that bullshit about: "so what do women want" as if there's one thing that all women want all the time makes me want to punch something. I especially hate it when male comedians trot it out as if it were the funniest punch line ever. Just saying.

Zan - I had wondered how all this plays out for women who are tall, since most of my female friends are pretty leprechaun-like. If you were to eliminate men shorter than you...that's a lot of guys, and what if some of them are really great? Why miss out?

Also, I think most women are less visually-oriented than me. How much of that is innate and how much is cultural - who knows? I'm not convinced that the typical male monomaniacal focus on looks is necessarily innate either. Now there's a topic for discussion.

The certainty in oneself thing...yep, entirely in agreement there. And it is hard to define - it doesn't have to be loud or ostentatious, in fact in some cases it's very quiet, but you know it when you see it. And I think that quality is ALWAYS attractive, in both men and women.

"I need someone whose masculinity is not threatened by my desire to protect them. There. "That's an excellent way to put it. I'm not attracted to insecure people, and if a guy is that easily threatened...well, what's wrong with him? Why is his sense of self so fragile? Why would I want to date someone who can be thrown out of whack that easily? What happens if/when we find ourselves in an actual crisis? It seems sort of...weak-willed to me, that "I must be better than my woman in some way to make me feel like a Real Man" thing.

And you don't strike me as scary or overwhelming at all, just confident and articulate, and since when are those bad things? If guys are getting all freaked out by your failure to bat your eyelashes and defer to them...what a bunch of big babies. You wouldn't want one of those anyway.

See, the men you like, I call them "attractive"...period. And while thin, their bodies? Well, definately NOT FEMININE imho. Shrug. To me it seems like you enjoy beauty, and there are some beautiful men out there...and they tend to be "less rugged and buffed out".

And no, I get you with the physical/powerful personality thing. I don't find "rich" as something that makes me horny either.

Sally - Agreed. It really is a shame that you don't live close enough for us to go out drinking together.

And the gender transgression thing pleases me even when it doesn't appeal to my particular kinks. I'm not attracted to butch women, but I'm still delighted that they exist. And people who LOOK very gender-congruent but don't act it are always interesting to be around, too.

And the fragile flower thing...so annoying. It really feels almost Victorian to me. I can see the need to talk about male violence etc but when it spills over into the idea that women are so delicate that they need to be protected from men, those lustful creatures...well, what about the women who are lustful creatures, too? What about those of us who LIKE being around men and don't feel threatened just because a guy has a libido? I see what the theory is aiming to accomplish, but it's missing the target by miles, and I can't help but feel that it ends up reinforcing exactly the "women must be sequestered for their own safety" attitudes that it decries.

It occurs to me, as I think about it, that stuff like "rich" has never struck me as being about 'attraction' (in the 'gets me horny' sense) so much as a sort of meta-attraction.

I would be surprised by people who were actually turned on by "guy with money". I would not be surprised by people who were aroused by (or found arousal much easier) interactions that are predicated on "with money" -- who found much more eroticism in the candlelit dinner at the fancy French place for which reservations must be made three weeks in advance than going out for really good sushi at the place around the corner, say. (Especially since the 'really fancy dinner' is part of the cultural mythology of seduction.)

Which gets into the whole question of what are the meta-attractive traits for someone to have, and what they say about people and society.

About Me

I'm a progressive, left-wing Brit living in California. I used to be a high-tech sales guru, but got tired of that and am now thinking about going back to school to get a Masters in Journalism. My undergrad is in Psychology, but I have never used this in any constructive way. This is typical for me.
I grew up mostly in the Middle East, was educated at a very fancy Scottish boarding school, moved to London at 18, and have lived in the Bay Area for the past 8 years. I am now suffering from a serious case of itchy feet, and am feeling that 8 years is quite long enough to stay in one place. Again, this is typical. If anyone really wants to figure me out they should Google "third culture" - I fit the prototype pretty closely. If any other Third Culture kids happen to stumble across this blog, write to me. There aren't very many of us.